


The Morning After

by snakeowls



Series: R/S 24 Hour Challenge works [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - No War, Breakfast, Community: rs24hrchallenge, Established Relationship, HOORAY, Hangover, M/M, Pining, Post-Hogwarts, Pre-Relationship, Remus Lupin Needs a Hug, Sirius has a boyfriend and it is Remus, Sirius has a boyfriend and it's not Remus, pre-wolfstar, rs24hrchallenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-27 09:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13245261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakeowls/pseuds/snakeowls
Summary: Remus and Sirius and two very different Sunday mornings after, five years apart.





	1. Then

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus is grumpy and tired and kind of in love with Sirius, but he's Remus Lupin and life just isn't that fair.

Remus stumbled through to the bathroom, bleary eyed and still half asleep, but thankfully he knew this walk like the back of his hand and, providing that Sirius hadn’t left his boots or any other obstacles discarded in the hallway, he’d make it safely without any trips or stubbed toes. He hadn’t had the most restful night’s sleep having been woken up by Sirius and Kevin coming back to the flat at 1am in the midst of a drunken argument then being kept awake by them enthusiastically shagging on the other side of his bedroom wall, mere inches away from Remus’s poor tired head. 

Ever since Remus read an article in the _Prophet_ about the dangers of sleeping under silencing charms his overactive imagination wouldn’t allow him to cast one should all of their possessions be stolen in the night (although he had no idea what they’d take) or in case a murderer snuck in and hid in one of the kitchen cupboards, lying in wait behind the corn flakes. 

Instead he tried music to distract from the sounds. He had been listening to an ambient playlist before bed, so just switched that back on, plugged his headphones in and drowsily pulled them over his ears, but once he managed to pass out he had some really messed up trippy dreams that he could only half remember. Still, it was better than the sound of his best mate/flatmate/unattainable dream giggling and squealing and getting fucked into the mattress by his latest boyfriend, though.

As Remus sat on the toilet, quietly contemplating the true horror of his life, he heard Sirius pottering about in the kitchen. ‘This flat and its fucking thin walls,’ he grumbled to himself and let his face fall to his hands to rub his eyes wearily. ‘Can I not just get one moment’s peace?’ 

Once he was done, he leaned on the sink and stared at himself in the mirror for a bit and took in the three day old stubble, dark circles under his eyes and bed hair, flattened on one side and his mousey brown curls sticking up everywhere on the other. He had certainly looked and felt better, but with four days to go until the moon he couldn’t expect much better.

He sighed and ambled through to the kitchen in search of tea, mentally preparing himself for the awkward morning dance with Sirius of, ‘have a good night?’, ‘when did you get in?’, ‘oh no, I didn’t hear anything, fast asleep, you know what I’m like’.

Except it wasn’t Sirius who Remus found, it was Kevin opening and closing the unfamiliar cupboard doors looking for god knows what.

“Morning Remus,” Kevin said sunnily. “Didn’t wake you did I?” He darted back over to the saucepan on the hob. 

Remus couldn’t remember if Kevin was a Muggle or a Wizard, or perhaps he never bothered to find out, so he took the safe route of no magic and flicked the kettle on. “No,” he mumbled, “I was already up.” He also didn’t ask if Kevin had a good night, because unfortunately he had heard how good his night was.

Kevin continued, “I couldn’t find the plates. Sirius is feeling a bit worse for wear, so I thought I’d make him some breakfast in bed,” he gestured towards the saucepan and Remus leaned over to take a look. 

“In the cupboard next to the sink,” Remus replied and squeezed past Kevin to grab a mug from the draining board. “And Sirius doesn’t like scrambled eggs.”

“He doesn’t? Shit...” Kevin looked disappointed and Remus tried his best not to smile, pushing the swell of smugness back down.

“He thinks that scrambled eggs are an affront to breakfast,” Remus continued as he popped a teabag in his mug. “He won’t eat omelettes either.” He looked over at Kevin to see his face fall even more, then sighed softly in defeat. It wasn’t Kevin’s fault that he was a complete and utter gormless twat, and at least he was trying to do something nice for Sirius. That had to stand for something despite how much Remus couldn’t bare to help him.

Remus couldn’t remember if anyone had ever brought him breakfast in bed - the sixth year Saturday morning dorm room ritual of James throwing a slice of toast at each of them through the curtains of their beds at some ungodly hour and shouting, “Lads! Quidditch practice _now_!” didn’t really count. Although, these days Sirius did always leave him a cup of tea outside his room before he left for work in the morning, kept warm with a charm for whenever Remus dragged himself out of bed. And Sirius was always there when Remus woke up after the moon, sometimes wrapped around his feet as Padfoot and sometimes not. After particularly bad moons he woke to Sirius looking down on him worriedly, already whispering healing spells and dabbing ointments on his wounds. But Sirius was his best friend and he knew that it could never be anything more. Remus wouldn’t allow it.

“Poached eggs are his favourite,” Remus offered, “And white bread for the toast.” He pointed to the boiling kettle, “I’ll get the tea on.”

“Thanks Remus,” Kevin beamed and took the scrambled eggs off the heat and left the pan to the side, excitedly picking up the box of eggs. “You’re a lifesaver. Oh, and coffee for me please, can’t stand tea.”

Remus nodded and avoided Kevin’s gaze as he grabbed another two mugs from the draining board and flung a teabag in each.

Ten minutes later, Remus found himself eating cold scrambled eggs alone in the kitchen having successfully talked Kevin through how to cook a poached egg and pretended to look apologetic when Kevin insisted that, “It’s ok, tea is fine, thanks for all your help buddy.”

As he listened to Sirius’s laughter float through from his bedroom Remus stabbed at a rubbery lump of egg with his fork, and may or may not have imagined it as Kevin’s head.


	2. Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five years later, Remus and Sirius are together and hungover and need to be rescued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written for the R/S 24 Hour Challenge set by nachodiablo - prompt was "the morning after" using the words: pillow, banana, firewhisky, snogging, fire, lipstick, window, hippogriff, tattoo, jealous
> 
> Thanks to Wildflame & Goodfrith for the beta and advice :D

When Sirius woke up he immediately wished that he hadn’t. He could feel that this would be a bad day what with a pounding ache already beating a furious tattoo in his head. He turned over - a bad choice or so the wave of nausea told him - and a sliver of light from the curtains hit him directly in the eye, mainlining a bolt of pain directly into his poor firewhisky addled brain. He groaned and tugged the pillow over his face, hoping that he’d suffocate and maybe this horror would be over.

Sirius heard a voice through the ether say: “That’s my pillow not yours, you twat.” Remus sounded rough, but nowhere near as bad as Sirius felt. 

“Why didn’t you tell me to stop drinking?” Sirius groaned.

“Don’t blame me, this was all your doing.” Remus paused. “Oh god, I was dancing wasn’t I? I just remembered that I was dancing on a chair. Why was I dancing, Sirius?”

Sirius smiled under the pillow, getting a flashback of Remus standing on a chair belting out Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’, his arms slung around his ‘new best friend’, an equally pissed lady with shocking pink lipstick, together doing what could be very loosely described as dancing. “Mmm, snake hips,” Sirius mumbled. 

“Oh fuck...”

Sirius made the herculean effort to move the pillow away from his face and squinted over at Remus, who was now sitting up, head in his hands. He pawed at Remus and grabbed his hand and stage-whispered, “I think that I might be dying. I have no moisture left in my body, I’m desiccating.”

“Is this his Highness’s subtle way of asking for tea? I’m not your house elf you know, I feel like shite too.” Remus squeezed Sirius’s hand, then pushed it away.

“Anything but more alcohol.”

“No hair of the dog?”

Remus chuckled at his own crap joke, then heaved himself up off the bed and stumbled out of their bedroom while Sirius tried to muster up the courage to sit up. He failed miserably and instead pulled the pillow back over his face.

An indeterminate length of time later, Remus returned and Sirius was shocked out of his snooze by something solid hitting his chest. He jolted awake with a, “What the fuck...”

“Banana,” Remus replied, “We don’t have any other food. Good for hangovers, lots of potassium.”

Sirius grabbed the banana and tossed it on the floor. “What does that even mean?”

Remus shrugged, although Sirius couldn’t see him, and set Sirius’s tea down on his bedside table. It had been a shaky journey, but Remus managed to make it without spilling any. “Your tea, would sir like anything else?”

“Fuck off.”

“You stink, by the way,” said Remus, leaning over and prodding Sirius in the arm.

“I’m sure you’re not smelling too fresh either, dearest.”

Remus made his way back round to his side of the bed and pulled the curtains closed properly as he passed the window, then set his own tea down and crawled gingerly back into bed. He grabbed his pillow away from Sirius’s face, set it back in its rightful place and burrowed his face into it. “We don’t have any hangover potion. I owled James to send some over.”

“I knew I was with you for some reason,” said Sirius, still immobile.

“Not just the endless tea and guaranteed snogging and shagging?”

“Not just that.”

After some restorative tea and much cajoling they managed to drag themselves through to the living room to await their saviour and slowly pieced together the timeline of the night before. Sirius described the chair dancing in great detail, while Remus shook Sirius to the bone with a tale of how Sirius finally agreed to go with Peter to those cooking classes that he’s been going on about for so long. “Oh Sirius, I’m so excited that you changed your mind,” Remus exaggerated Peter’s squeaky voice, “This is going to be so much fun!”

The fire flamed green to announce James’s arrival, and Sirius possibly hadn’t ever been this happy to see him in his life. “Morning gents!” James beamed with the sunny disposition of someone who was hangover free. Sirius tried not to feel too jealous. “Look who wanted to come with me?”

Harry jumped out from the fireplace behind James and squealed, “It’s me! I brought Hungry Hungry Hippogriffs, Daddy says one of you will play it with me!”

Remus looked at James with a deadpan expression on his face, then turned to Harry. “Great stuff,” he grinned although he really didn’t mean it. “I’m sure that Uncle Sirius would love to play it with you, Hungry Hippogriffs is his favourite after all, he was just telling me that earlier!”

“Aw, cool!” Harry shouted, as Sirius and Remus both winced, and he launched himself onto the couch to start setting up the game on the coffee table.

“James, potion _now_ ,” Sirius held out his hand and James laughed. He eventually began to rummage in his plastic shopping bag and handed the bottle over to Sirius who unscrewed the cap and took a big gulp.

“Right lads, Lils says that’s a new potion that she’s been working on so should kick in within the next fifteen minutes. As instructed I brought breakfast. Eggs?”

Remus paled and Sirius heaved slightly at the thought of food passing his lips, but he reconsidered. “My body is telling me no, but I know that once this potion brings me back to the land of the living I’ll be fu-, eh, fudging starving so…”

“Not scrambled though,” said Remus, taking the bottle from Sirius.

Sirius looked over at Remus who still looked like he was about to be sick, and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> All comments and kudos gratefully received!


End file.
